A Quiet Death (18 page)

The woman behind the counter smiled indulgently. ‘I'm sure he'll be glad to see you. He hasn't had very many visitors since they transferred him up here from trauma.'

‘We're a small family, all spread out. Go where the jobs are, you know! I just found out about Nick's accident! Can you believe it?'

The woman handed me a visitor's pass. ‘He's in 129B. Just down the hallway there, and take the first left.'

I found the man I knew as Skip in a private room, lying flat on his back with a brace like a halo encircling his head. From the halo, four long metal rods extended, screwing the device directly into his skull. Other metal bars stretched from the halo down to a stabilizing shoulder brace.

The TV was tuned to the Discovery Channel where MythBusters appeared to be exploring the dangers of taking a shower during a thunderstorm.

I walked into his line of sight. ‘Hello, Skip. Remember me?'

Skip closed his eyes for a long second, then opened them again, and blinked as if trying to focus. ‘The lady on the train.'

‘That's right. Hannah Ives. I came to see how you're doing.' I still held the flowers in one hand and the balloon in the other.

Skip's hand rose slightly, then fell back on to the covers. ‘As you see.'

‘That looks like a medieval torture device,' I said, indicating the head brace.

‘It is.'

‘I'm very glad you survived the crash,' I told him as I set my autumn bouquet on the windowsill next to another similar arrangement. ‘These are pretty,' I told him, touching a yellow chrysanthemum.

‘They're from my mother.'

‘Ah. Well, now you have a matched pair!' Keeping my back to the window, I added, ‘You're incredibly lucky, you know. When you passed out on me . . . well, I thought you had, you know . . .'

‘Died?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Only the good die young,' he said.

The TV remote lay next to his hand. He patted his way over to it, fumbled for a moment, then switched off the set.

‘What's wrong with you, if you don't mind my asking. Your legs . . . ?'

‘I have a C5 contusion,' he said. ‘The legs are the least of my worries.' He whacked his right leg with the remote. ‘Smashed, but healing.'

‘What's a C5 contusion?''

‘A spinal injury. To begin with, I was pretty much paralyzed from the chest down. I've come a long way since then.'

‘Kernan is as good as it gets, I understand.'

‘So they tell me.'

I pointed to the halo. ‘How long do you have to wear that contraption strapped to your head? Is it really
screwed
into the bone? My God.'

‘Dr Frankenstein's finest invention. It might come off in a week or two, they tell me, but I'll still have to wear a neck brace of some sort.'

‘Can you walk?'

‘That remains to be seen.' Beneath the blanket, he wiggled his toes. ‘They're coming back, slowly, but they are coming back.'

‘Do you remember the crash?' I watched his face closely. With his head completely immobile, the eyes said it all. They stared back at me vacantly.

‘I spend my days just lying here, trying to remember, but it's all a blank. I remember the heat. God, it was hot! I remember sitting next to you on the train, lusting after your iPhone. Asking about the weather. After that, nothing, until I woke up here.'

‘Ah. Probably just as well. It was pretty horrific.'

‘So they tell me.'

‘I was attending a charity luncheon that day, Skip. I'm curious. What were you doing in DC?'

Skip closed his eyes as if the answer to my question was written on the insides of his eyelids. ‘I was doing genealogical research at the Library of Congress.'

‘In the Adams Building?' I asked, feeling a little mean about trying to trip such a sick man up.

‘No. The Genealogy Library is in the Thomas Jefferson Building. The one with the dome.'

‘Oh, you're right.' And he was, too. I'd visited the Genealogy Library on several occasions.

An aide slipped into the room to top up Skip's water pitcher with fresh ice. After he'd gone, I said breezily, ‘Say, Skip. A guy named James Hoffner came to see me the other day.'

‘Hoffner, yes. He's my attorney.'

‘Oh.' What else could I say?
Who is that asshole you hired?

‘You probably don't remember, but I was carrying a bag on the train. A ratty old one from Julius Garfinkels.'

‘I remember it well,' I told him. ‘We chatted briefly about the store. Do you remember that?'

Skip nodded. ‘Hoffner's supposed to be helping me get it back. It's got family stuff in it.'

‘I know. There was a mix-up at the hospital and they gave the bag to me by mistake.'

Skip's eyes widened in what seemed like genuine surprise. I made a mental note to check if he'd majored in theater at Stanford. ‘Great! Do you have it with you?'

‘No, but relax! Don't worry about it. I was able to locate your mother, and I returned the bag to her. It's perfectly safe.'

If Skip was alarmed by this news, he didn't show it. ‘It's her birthday coming up,' he rushed to explain. ‘I was having some old photographs restored as a surprise. Re-colored. Matted and put in a nice frame. You know.'

‘Sure,' I said, catching him in the fib almost at once. I'd seen his mother's passport, but he didn't know that. Lilith's birthday was on April 4th, some six months away. Unless Skip was a guy who really planned ahead, his birthday surprise story was pretty fishy.

‘I had to look at a couple of letters,' I confessed. ‘You know, to track the owner down.' I imagined Skip, left alone in his mother's appalling house, tossing clothes and shoes and unopened boxes around the cluttered house in disgust, frustration and rage. I pictured him finding the bag, opening the shirt box, going through it with growing shock and surprise.

‘Who is Zan, do you know?' I asked.

‘My mother's old boyfriend.'

‘Do you know his full name?'

‘What's it to you?'

I shrugged, but probably not very convincingly. ‘Just curious. I guess I thought Zan was your dad. Is he?'

Skip stared past me at the dark and silent TV. ‘I don't have a father. I was conceived spontaneously by the process of parthenogenesis,' he said bitterly.

‘My dad's still alive,' I said conversationally. ‘But I lost my mother a long time ago.' I reached out and laid my hand very gently on the blanket covering his good leg. ‘Take care of your mother, Skip. She needs you.'

‘She doesn't need
anybody
,' he snarled.

‘We all need somebody, Skip. Do you have a wife?'

He snorted.

‘A girlfriend?'

‘She decided that Maryland was a foreign country, and that leaving the beaches of sunny California would be worse then living naked among the Tlingit in Alaska. So, fuck her.'

‘Well, OK then!' I had to laugh. ‘So, tell me how you really feel.'

‘Do you remember praying with me?' I asked after a moment of silence.

Skip's eyes flicked to the right, in the general direction of the bedside table where a rosary hung from the knob of the drawer. ‘Sorry, I don't,' he said.

I pointed. ‘Would you like me to hand you the rosary?'

When he said yes, I gently unhooked it from the knob and held it up. I fingered the rosary, running the cool, smooth black beads between my fingers before dangling the crucifix over his open palm. I let it fall, and his hand closed over it. Skip's eyelids drooped. He breathed in deeply, held his breath for a moment, then let it out slowly.

‘I
am
tiring you,' I said. ‘I better be going.'

Skip's eyes flew open. ‘I'm sorry. How are
you
?' he asked, which I appreciated, even as an afterthought.

I raised my arm, still encased in the brace. ‘Broken arm. Almost completely healed.'

‘Good, good.'

‘Would you like me to visit again?' I asked.

‘Yes, please. The cable channels are fascinating, but I honestly think King Tut has given up all his secrets. The
Titanic
, too, you know?' His eyes closed, his chest rose and fell, slowly, rhythmically.

I was tiptoeing toward the door when somebody in the hall outside bellowed, ‘Nick, buddy,' and barged into the room. When the man saw me, he stopped dead, as if his shoes had suddenly hit a patch of superglue.

‘Well, well, well. This must be your mother.'

‘Shhh,' I warned, tapping an index finger against my lips like the proverbial librarian, although I'd never seen a real librarian actually do that. ‘He's asleep. Can we talk in the hall?'

‘And you are?' I asked as I pulled the door shut behind me.

‘Jim Hoffner, Ms Chaloux. I'm working for Nick.' He held out his hand.

I didn't think much of Hoffner's investigative skills if he mistook me for the elfin Lilith Chaloux. ‘Sorry, my name is Hannah Ives. We've spoken on the phone.'

Hoffner's hand retracted as if I'd zapped him with a gag hand buzzer.

‘And I believe you have visited my home on a
couple
of occasions.' I sent icy shards in his direction. After what he'd had done to my house, I wanted to slap the jerk silly, but, for the moment, I was enjoying making the worm squirm. ‘I believe you may have left something behind the last time you were there.'

‘Oh?'

‘Your fingerprints.'

‘I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about Mrs Ives.' His face grew red beneath a tan that owed more to a tanning bed in a strip mall somewhere, than it did to a week spent lounging on a Florida beach.

‘Your goons, then. I should send you the cleaning bill. Do you know how hard it is to get fingerprint powder off wallpaper?'

‘I . . .' he began.

I raised a warning finger. ‘Just stay away from me, Mr Hoffner. Concentrate on squeezing whatever you can out of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, take your thirty, forty percent, whatever, and stay out of my life.

‘I have nothing to interest you now,' I announced airily. ‘I just stopped by to tell Nicholas that I was able to locate his mother and return the box of letters you were so interested in getting your hands on directly to her. So . . .' I rubbed my palms together. ‘They're back home where they belong. All's well that ends well, don't you agree?'

I left Hoffner sputtering in my wake.

Out in the parking lot I passed a green Ford pickup. The state of Maryland allows seven characters on a vanity plate and James Hoffner had managed to use them all: GOTALAW.

I stopped, peered through the window into the cab. Tossed carelessly on the front seat was a New York Yankees baseball cap. A pair of sunglasses with ice-blue lenses dangled by one earpiece from the sun visor. My heart flopped. Had Hoffner followed me to New York City? Had he been the guy watching me from the corner of 5th Avenue and 11th Street the day I found the Simon sisters?

TWENTY

T
hursday dawned bright and clear but too damn cold to walk a dog. Too cold to do anything, in my opinion, except slip into a bathtub full of bubbles and try to soak off the oily feeling I got after my confrontation with James Hoffner.

I'd been almost fully immersed, a hot washcloth neatly folded and pressed over my eyelids, when Paul knocked on the door. ‘Would madam care for coffee?'

I raised a corner of the washcloth and peeked out. ‘Madam would. Very much.'

Paul pushed the door open with one foot and eased into the bathroom, a mug of coffee in each hand. He handed one to me, then lowered the toilet seat lid and sat down on its chenille cover. ‘You really shouldn't have provoked the man, Hannah.'

‘Who? Hoffner?'

‘Who else have you been provoking lately?'

I slid the washcloth completely off my eyes so I could glare at my husband. ‘But he needed provoking. Especially after what he did to our house. And I think he followed me when I went up to New York City, too. The creep.'

‘You can't prove that he did either of those things.'

‘That's why he needed provoking.'

‘To what end?'

I slithered down in the tub until bubbles covered everything but my head. ‘The way he smiled, like he was smarter than me. Made my blood boil! He shouldn't be allowed to think that he can get away with spying, with trashing other people's houses, even if he has it done by some goons
in absentia
.'

Using my toes, I turned the tap so that more hot water would trickle into the tub. ‘Help me sort something out.'

Paul leaned back against the toilet tank, extended his long legs and crossed them at the ankles. ‘I have a feeling this is going to take some time, so let me get comfortable,' he grinned.

‘I've been working on a timeline,' I said, ‘and some things just aren't fitting in. The Metro crash was on Tuesday afternoon, September seventh.'

‘“A date that will live in infamy,”' Paul quoted.

I wrung the washcloth out and placed it over my eyes again. ‘And when did Meredith Logan go missing?'

‘I don't know. We didn't hear about Meredith until much later, from Emily. I'm assuming that you know the answer to this question.'

‘I do. Meredith disappeared on Tuesday, September seventh, around lunchtime.'

‘And you believe there's a connection?'

If my eyes hadn't been hidden under a washcloth, I would have rolled them. ‘What do you think Nicholas Ryan Aupry, aka Skip, was doing on September seventh before he stepped on to a Metro train and sat down next to me?'